Connolly leads the way as Syracuse Crunch crushes Albany, 6-2

Brett Connolly scored twice and added two assists and goalie Riku Helenius stopped 28 shots as the Syracuse Crunch stomped Albany 6-2 at the Onondaga County War Memorial.

Syracuse raced off with three goals in the first and second periods en route to matching its highest-scoring home output of the season. J.P. Cote, Richard Panik, J.T. Brown and Philip-Michael Devos also put marks in the goals column for the Crunch.

The win gave Syracuse reclaimed sole possession of the AHL points lead with 82.

The Crunch tore the stuffing out of the game with three goals in a 2-minute, 35-second span of the second. Brown inflated the cushion to 4-0 at the 7:22 mark, ripping a shot from the left side of a 2-on-1 past the far side of Devils goalie Scott Wedgewood.

Devos waited less than two minutes before grabbing an offering from Connolly and hitting the bulls-eye from the right side at the 9:11 mark. And 46 seconds later Connolly posted his second, driving the left side of the net for a power-play score.

The Crunch built the foundation of the rout by clipping Wedgewood three times on its first eight shots of the game.

Connolly lit the fuse at the 6:08 mark of the first, taking a dish from Vladdy Namestnikov and powering home a bid from the slot for his 25th goal of the season.

Thirty seconds later, and from the other end of the scoring spectrum, Cote put down his second goal of the season. Taking advantage of a J.F. Jacques screen out front, Cote slipped in a long shot from the left point to make it 2-0.

Panik converted his marker with the Crunch on a power play. Connolly set him up in the slot, and Panik had easy pickings from there for his 22nd of the season.

Carolina claimed Tampa Bay forward Adam Hall off waivers on Saturday. Had Hall cleared, he would have been assigned to Syracuse.